The CDU wants to enable pensioners to earn tax-free additional income of up to 2,000 euros per month. The criticism of this is great. The Left accuses the CDU of wanting to “accustom people to hardship until death.”
Politicians from the SPD, FDP and Left Party have sharply criticized the CDU proposal for tax-free additional income opportunities for pensioners. Yesterday, CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann presented the concept of an “active pension”. The party wants to make it possible for people to voluntarily continue working after reaching retirement age up to a limit of 2,000 euros per month without having to pay taxes on this earned income. This is intended to alleviate the shortage of skilled workers.
Left-wing parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch told the “Tagesspiegel” that anyone who wanted to work in retirement should do so. “The CDU concept of the ‘active pension’ is also intended to get people used to the hardships that lead to death,” added Bartsch. There is “a right to retirement”. More important than tax exemption for pensioners’ earned income would be “to increase pensions extraordinarily and by an additional ten percent on January 1, 2024,” said Bartsch.
The SPD parliamentary group rejected the CDU model as unfair. “The proposal favors professors and lawyers and disadvantages those who have worked hard physically for decades, such as roofers or nurses,” said SPD parliamentary group vice-president Dagmar Schmidt to the newspaper. Such a model “would primarily benefit already well-off senior citizens.”
“Never available to millions of employees”
The FDP labor market politician Carl-Julius Cronenberg also rejected the CDU proposal. “Incentives to employ full pensioners are sensible,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. However, it is not clear why Linnemann is “proposing an instrument that will never be available to millions of employees, for example craftsmen, and which further complicates the already complicated tax law.”
Anyone who reaches regular retirement age in Germany does not automatically have to retire under the current legal situation. Anyone who continues to work receives an additional 0.5 percent on their pension every month. In principle, the additional income opportunities are not limited. But as soon as pension payments and additional income exceed the basic allowance of currently 10,908 per year, the additional income earned must also be taxed.